n June 1, 1889, newspapers across the country bore huge headlines announcing that on the day before, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, had been ravaged by the most devastating flood in the nation's history. With railroad tracks washed away and telegraph lines down, contact with the city was completely cut off, so most early newspaper editions carried stories based on rumor, conjecture, and the accounts of a few overwrought survivors. One bold headline proclaimed, "JOHNSTOWN BLOTTED OUT BY THE FLOOD! HALF OF ITS PEOPLE KILLED." The story that followed told of unbelievable horrors, but the truth, when it became known, was scarcely less ghastly than the fabricated tales of the "yellow" journalists of the time: more than 2,200 people were known to be dead and hundreds more were missing. Property damage amounted to $17 million. The cleanup operation would take five years, and bodies were still being found months and even years after the flood.